


Amore

by SgtMac



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Henry's Getting Married, Love Wins, Semi-Divorced Mommies Trope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-20 20:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11928243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SgtMac/pseuds/SgtMac
Summary: Five years ago, an almost fatal car accident involving Henry caused a guilt-stricken and hurt Emma to flee Storybrooke and her marriage to Regina. Now, on the day that Henry himself is getting married, Emma finally accepts an invitation to come home again. With unsigned divorce papers in her bag, Emma comes into town wondering if, despite all the heartbreak which still exists between them, there might yet be second chance possible for she and Regina. Semi-sorta-canon compliant.





	Amore

He’s getting married in three weeks, and there’s an invitation sitting on her desk that reads, “The Mother of the Groom Formally Invites You to the Wedding of her Son, Henry Daniel Mills…” like she isn’t his other mother. He’s getting married, and the glossy invitation had been addressed to Ms. Emma Swan like there hadn’t at one time been a hyphenated second part to her last name.

Like there legally still isn’t one.

It offers her (and a plus one, should she choose to bring one, and even the suggestion of that, though the language is ordinary, hurts her deeply) the option of roast chicken, sliced beef or a walnut salad, but suggests no other familiarity behind that; blandly requesting an RSVP as soon as possible, like she’s just another person instead of a former and a once. But she is and was and when she clutches the white card between her fingers and feels the delicately traced lines grooved into it, something hurts right in the middle of her chest and Emma _misses_.

God, she misses so much.

She imagines that no one thinks that she will show up or even respond to the invitation. Five long years of retreat and seclusion and calls, letters and emails left unanswered will do that for your reputation; but the wounds have (mostly - okay, not really) healed, and she thinks that maybe she can go back home again and face them all.

Face _her_.

Her mind swirling with too many memories, Emma opens a drawer and pulls out a long silver necklace, a simple ring with diamonds set deep into the band glittering on the end of it. A promise broken, a quietly whispered vow shattered by distrust and fear, and one terrible moment when both of their ghosts had been louder than the vehement declarations of the present.

The ring presses hard into her palm, a crescent shaped indent against flesh made calloused by a job which keeps her constantly moving (anything not to think about what she had walked away from). The invitation is still in her other hand, and she’s ignored every other overture that was sent her way – even the desperate please of their son to please, _please_ come back home.

But she’s ignored them all – every single painful reminder of the past that she had fled.

Even the divorce papers, which sit unsigned on her kitchen counter, and have for three years now, the pages dusty and wrinkled at the edges. The day they had arrived, she’d drunk herself into a stupor; and when she came to her senses, she remembered that doing this had been what had cost her everything. She promptly proceeded to shatter every bottle in her apartment. The bright red blood on her hands and on the walls and floors had been spectacular.

She’d pretty much kissed her cleaning deposit goodbye.

The papers had been thrown on the back of the counter after that, and that’s where they’ve been for three years now, moving only now and then when she needs to torment herself. Terse reminders to sign them have stopped coming, and yet, there are no final ones, no absolute end.

She wonders if Regina still cares, wonders if Regina even thinks it matters anymore.

They’d both been so hesitant to marry in the first place, but for a time afterwards, it seemed like their worries had been unfounded. Things had been good – so very good. There’d been warm breakfasts, and cool sheets, family dinners and shared showers, and there’d been quiet. After a while, they’d taken it for granted, but they failed to recognize that through the bliss of it all.

Until that night, and the way that they’d argued.

Until Henry had been on a stretcher, and Regina had been screaming.

Until Victor had said, “We’ll just have to pray,” and Regina had growled, “If something happens to him, I’ll kill you” and everything had just cracked apart, shards of both of them flying apart.

There had been even worse words than that, tears flowing down Regina’s cheeks as she’d angrily informed Emma that her presence in their lives brought nothing but pain and loss.

Snow had pleaded with Regina to stop, David had insisted that Regina didn’t mean any of it, Zelena had stared at both of them in shock.

Emma had just turned and walked away.

Her departure from Storybrooke had come fairly quickly after that. She’d waited around just long enough to see her son wake up, his arms immediately wrapping around Regina, the two of them embracing – and then she’d fled, leaving behind only a note expressing her remorse.

Not for running away, but for what had happened to Henry.

Regina had tried to call her repeatedly.

Sent hundreds of texts.

Apologizing for her words, ranting at Emma for taking off, even crying on the voice messages.

Always saying, “Come home, my love.”

“At least talk to me.”

“Emma, _please_ …”

Emma hadn’t answered any of them, unable to stop hearing, “This is your fault – all of this.”

Unable to stop seeing the hatred in her wife’s eyes.

She’d changed her number and moved away, and Regina had still found her and kept trying.

Until the day that the divorce papers had arrived, neat and orderly, requesting a signature.

That had been three years ago.

And now there’s this – an invitation from the “mother of the groom” to “Ms. Emma Swan”.

They’re not expecting her to show up, she knows, and she supposes that there’s a freedom in no one - even the people you love the most - believing in you anymore. But it’s a dirty kind of freedom, and like the bruises on her ribs and callouses on her hands, it just feel like pain to her.

Her job is brutal and lonely, and the ice packs she keeps cold only numb her body not her heart.

The truth is, Emma wants to go home.

She wants to see her wife and son again.

She wants to be with the ones she loves.

She wants her family back.

 

* * *

 

Everyone is pretending that they don’t know that Regina had sent the invitation.

Just like they’ve been pretending that Regina isn’t still wearing her wedding ring.

Better that way, easier, and there’s so much to be done today.

It’s Saturday, and Henry’s getting married today, and the piece of paper that he had painstakingly scripted out his vows on has gone missing. It’s Saturday, and the ceremony is in four hours, and Regina hasn’t stopped moving since she’d jumped from her bed hours earlier.

Everyone is pretending, but Henry wonders if Regina isn’t just trying to distract herself from thinking about the invitation that she’d sent, and the reply that she hadn’t yet gotten back.

Henry’s trying not to think about that, too, because after five years, maybe it’s time to let go.

Maybe when Regina takes the ring off, he’ll start thinking about doing that.

Right now, he’s standing across from her in the kitchen (he’s getting married in the backyard of the mansion; she’d been surprised at his suggestion, but this is home, and he can’t think of a better place than here) and she’s trying to remember all the things that she can’t forget.

Such as breathing, which he tells her to do, and she laughs at him and keeps going a hundred miles an hour in every direction. Oh, because she’s Regina Mills and somehow, she’s always in control. On the surface, it all seems so orderly, but he knows his mother, and he can see the wildness lurking in her eyes.

He thinks there’s something else, too, because maybe this is her last stand.

Maybe she’s thinking that if Emma doesn’t show up today, then it really is over.

She’s been saying it’s over for years now, but well, the ring only comes off when she showers.

“Mom,” he says, cutting off her ramble about how the cake will be late if it doesn’t arrive soon.

He’s not sure what it’ll be late for or what soon means considering there are four hours to go until the ceremony and five until the reception, but she’s stressed out, and she shouldn’t be.

Because he thinks that either way, it’s all going to be okay.

Either Emma comes home or she doesn’t.

They’ll be fine no matter what she does.

As it turns out, he’s been pretending just a little bit, too.

Pretending that it doesn’t hurt that his mother had run away from them.

“Henry,” she breathes out, and it’s her voice, low and somewhat choked that gets his attention.

“Don’t you start,” he insists.

“I promised,” she tells him.

“Yes, you did. No crying before the ceremony,” he reminds her.

She smiles warmly at him, reaching up to move hair away from his eyes; she’s in flats for now, reserving her insanely high heels for later when she’s in front of a crowd and needs to look like the all-impressive Queen (and he thinks, perhaps for Emma, too, should she show up).

“I promise,” she reaffirms.

“Are you okay?” he asks, feeling the slight edge of her wedding ring against his cheek.

Aware that even if she hadn’t invited Emma, today would still be weighing on her heart.

“Some things don’t work out,” she says, nodding her head quickly. “And some things do.”

“Mom –”

“Your…your marriage will.”

Okay, he thinks, time to stop pretending.

“She’ll show up,” he says, squaring his shoulders and looking right at her.

Regina forces a smile, but her chin wobbles, and it’s as thin as a smile can get. “If she doesn’t, it doesn’t matter. Today is your day, and I will be damned if anything is allowed to ruin it.”

“Okay,” he agrees. “Then I guess I’d better start getting ready.”

“You need a trim,” she reminds him, and then looks up at the clock on the wall.

“Four hours,” he tells her. “Plenty of time.”

“Aren’t I supposed to be calming you down?” she teases.

“Nah,” he chuckles, and then kisses her on the cheek. “Not how it works.”

"Go," she says. "Find Geoff and the rest of your hooligan friends –"

"You love my friends. Especially Geoff."

"He's a complete idiot," she says, clearly showing her affection for Henry's college roommate.

"He's family."

"Somehow I ended up with two sons," she mutters, and then gives his shoulder a push, mostly because she has a thousand things to do before the guests start arriving, and if she doesn't get moving, none of this will happen.

And this has to happen.

His happiness has to happen.

“And get ready,” she finishes. "Find your vows."

“I will. I'm sure Geoff has them in his board shorts or something like that. You’ll come see me before it’s time?” he asks, for a time just a young boy again.

“Of course, I will,” she tells him, suddenly blinking rapidly.

“Good,” he answers, and then he’s backing away, stopping only to say. “She’ll be here.” And then, before she can tell him again that it doesn’t matter, he’s rushing out the door.

Sighing indulgently, she smiles after him, willing herself to keep her promise not to cry.

Insisting that she won’t –

She freezes.

As she hears a soft yet familiar voice from behind her, the words almost a whisper, “He always did know me best.”

Her eyes close. She exhales. And finally manages to say, “Apparently better than I ever did.”

“That’s not true,” Emma insists from behind her, her boot squeaking as she steps forward.

Regina takes another breath, wills herself to a strength she doesn’t actually feel, and then turns to face the woman whom she hasn’t seen since that terrible afternoon in the hospital five years ago.

Chin up, Regina looks directly in the tired green eyes of Emma Swan – her _wife_.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” Regina says, taking in Emma’s faded jeans and strangely loose sky-blue tee-shirt, a black leather jacket there for warmth, a green duffle bag over her shoulder.

“Really? You didn’t?” Emma adds a slight chuckle at the end, but her heart isn’t in it. She knows that she’s earned the lack of faith in her, but somehow hearing and seeing it hurts unbearably.

“You’ve ignored seven hundred and thirty two text messages –”

“You counted them?”

“One hundred and twelve emails –”

“I guess so.”

“And thirteen letters. Never mind the phone calls you just never picked up.”

“I know.”

“I tried, Emma.”

“I know.”

Regina nods, her posture tightening. “But you’re not here for me, anyway –”

“Regina, no, it’s more than –”

Regina cuts her off sharply, unwilling to allow herself to believe that there could be more to this – more for _them_ – in this moment. “You’re here for Henry. As you should be.”

“Right. Henry.” Emma swallows, wincing slightly as her ribs pull; she’d broken two of them three weeks ago during a foot-race with a felon through about twelve different alleys. It’s hardly the first bone she’s broken over the last several years, but ribs always hurt a little bit worse.

“You’re hurt,” Regina notes, her voice softening ever so slightly. She takes half a step forward.

“I’m fine,” Emma responds immediately, without thinking.

Regina nods, immediately retreating the step she’d taken, her hands winding tightly together in front of her. “Yes, of course, you are. Well, Henry will be delighted to see you, at least.”

“You’re still wearing our ring,” Emma observes, realizing that yes, she had returned home for her son’s wedding, but somehow this matters just as much. It might be the last chance she has.

To be fair, it might not be a chance at all; Regina certainly doesn’t owe her a second one.

But she’d crossed several states to be here, and if all she can do is apologize, then so be it.

First, though…the diamond wedding ring.

Which sits proud and shiny and as beautiful as ever on Regina’s elegant hand.

“You’re not,” Regina responds, her eyes on Emma’s bare finger. Something mean and broken rears up in her, then, and hurting, she lets it out. “I presume you sold it?”

“I suppose I deserve that,” Emma nods. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out the silver necklace, her own wedding band hanging at the end of it. “But no, I would never –”

“Don’t,” Regina says sharply. “You don’t get to act like you valued our marriage. That you valued _me_. Not after you ran away from everything that we had. Not after you refused –”

“You hurt me, too,” Emma cuts in, her voice quiet.

“I know,” Regina concedes, the fight bleeding out of her, suddenly looking weary and defeated.

“Problem is, you were right. About every word you said that day –”

“Emma, no.”

“Yes. My own recklessness got Henry hurt. That’s why I left. Because I looked in the mirror and I saw the person who had to have her sixteen year old son pour her into a car because she was too drunk to stand up, and because he was taking care of me instead of…anywhere else –”

“He made the choice to do that. The same as you made the choice to get drunk to deal with the dumb fight we had that day. He was taking care of you –”

“And you hated me for it.”

“I thought I was going to lose him. I was angry. And scared. I reacted.” She frowns deeply, thinking about how just seconds earlier, she had snapped at Emma and tried to hurt her. Some old terrible habits die hard, and the lashing out is most certainly one that she’s not proud of.

That it had contributed to what would turn into heartbreak is devastating.

Also, undeniable.

“I know,” Emma confesses. “So, did I.”

“The only difference, Emma? I tried to make it better; you kept running.”

“I know,” Emma says again.

“And now what? What do you want to have happen here? Are you planning to –”

“Apologize,” Emma sighs. “That’s all. Say I’m sorry for destroying the best thing –” she forces a painful smile. “I loved you so much, Regina.” A nervous chuckle, and then she corrects, “I love you so much. With everything inside of me, I still love you. And…I’m sorry I screwed us up.”

“Why couldn’t you just come home and talk to me that night?” Regina begs of her.

“The night of the accident?” Off Regina’s nod, she says, “Because I was pissed at you. Pissed that such a good start to the day –” she laughs. “Do you remember? I woke up with you on top of me, and it was…it was amazing. I didn’t want to go to work. I wish I hadn’t. I wish you hadn’t.”

“Me, too,” Regina murmurs, wringing her hands together. There’s still several feet between them, a gulf of emotion and hurt, and these are just words, but they’re the first ones in five years.

“But then you had a bad day at work, and you took it out on me and my job as the Sheriff and –”

“I was stressed out, which is…it’s no excuse. Not then and not now,” Regina says quietly, remembering emotions and cause and effect that has long been buried, and now, perhaps with all these years between now and then, seeing them in an entirely new light. “I was going to try to make it up to you that night. I knew that I was out of line, Emma. I knew that I had hurt you.”

“I just didn’t want to fight with you. It seemed…stupid. Because I knew you didn’t mean it, but I was still pissed. So, I figured I’d have a drink and cool down, and then we could talk it out when I got home. I hadn’t – I told you that I’d never planned to get drunk, but one thing led to another, and people kept buying me drinks, and the next thing I knew, I couldn’t even walk. Do you know how absurd that is? I’ve been drinking most of my life, and that night, I was just…hammered.”

“You should have called _me_ not Henry. I would have come for you.”

“I didn’t call _anyone_ ,” Emma tells her. “The bartender did. And somehow, he got Henry.”

“I remember the rest.”

“That’s the thing: I don’t. I remember waking up in a hospital bed with a broken wrist, and finding out that our car had been hit going through the intersection. And then my dad was telling me that it was because Henry had been paying too much attention to me and hadn’t seen –”

“I remember,” Regina says again, desperately wishing she could forget those days.

“What I do remember, though? Your anger. And how much you hated me.”

“I didn’t – Emma, we could have worked it out.”

“Not if Henry had died.”

“But he didn’t. He didn’t, and you still ran away from us.”

“I didn’t trust myself.”

“Or me.”

“I knew you’d forgive me,” Emma admits. “And…I couldn’t…I couldn’t let you.”

“You couldn’t…was it better to have lost me? To have lost us?”

“I almost got Henry killed,” Emma says quietly. “Every word you said to me that night –”

“Was horrible.”

“Was true.”

“That whole day was me being awful to you,” Regina says, and then she’s stepping back again and pressing her back to the counter behind her. Anything to stop her from moving forward.

Because suddenly, she wants to.

And even though she can now see her fault in all of this, the reality is that Emma had still left.

She’d walked out on their marriage and their family without giving them a chance.

Maybe, that’s not fixable.

Maybe, it shouldn’t be.

Especially five years later.

Even if she desperately wants it to be.

“As much as you hated me –”

“I didn’t hate you,” Regina interrupts, because she desperately needs Emma to stop saying that. "I don't."

Emma shakes her head, like that’s nearly impossible to comprehend. Even that slight bit of movement is enough to send another bolt of pain rushing through her, and her knees wobble enough to almost take her down. A hand streaking out and covering her ribs, she tries to breathe.

“What did you do to yourself?” Regina demands, sharply enough to make Emma take notice.

Sharply enough to make Emma slightly bristle in response.

Which…maybe, that was the point.

Because this defeated Emma…it’s not what Regina wants.

Maybe they have no future, but the idea that Emma doesn’t makes her heart hurt.

“I had a bit of a run-in chasing a mark,” Emma explains. “Ended up on my ass.”

“How often do your…run-ins end up with you getting hurt?” Regina queries.

 “Who do you partner up with against the crazy shit in this town without me?” Emma counters.

“My sister. Occasionally Rumple. It’s not the same without you.”

“I’m sorry,” Emma says again.

Regina shakes her head. “Why didn’t you give us a chance? Why didn’t you give _me_ one?”

“Because that would have meant giving _me_ one.”

“Then why did you come home now?”

“To see our son get married,” Emma tells her. “That’s it. And then if you want, I’ll leave right after.” She reaches back for the bag she’d had over her shoulder and lifts it. “The di – the papers are in here. They’re not signed, but…if you want me to sign them, I will. Whatever you want.”

“What do you want, Emma?”

“To go back to that morning, and not have left our bed,” Emma says simply. “To roll over, and take you into my arms and…to not have made the choices I made that day. Any of them.”

“I’m not sure that I can forgive you,” Regina tells her.

“I don’t expect you to.”

“But I know that Henry wants you here, and no matter what there is or isn’t between us, anymore, the one thing that has always mattered more than anything else is our son.”

“Yes,” Emma agrees. “But for what it’s worth, I really do want to be here.”

“That’s a start,” Regina tells her. She gestures towards the door. “He’s over at the loft, hopefully getting ready. You should go and see him. Let him know you’re here.”

“Okay,” Emma replies, taking a step towards the door. She stops and looks back at Regina, a hand on her ribs, and tears glistening in her eyes. “I don’t want to play games. I don’t want to…I love you, Regina. I have missed you every single day, every single moment. I screwed up, and I know it. I got scared and I ran because all I knew was that I’d let our family down. If you can’t forgive me, that’s okay because I’m not sure that I can forgive myself. But I do still love you.”

“It’s our son’s wedding day,” Regina reminds her.

Emma nods, taking that for an answer. “Okay,” she says.

“I want this to be the perfect day for him. The beginning of something beautiful.”

“It will be. He doesn’t have to be –”

“Like us?” Regina finishes for her. “No, and he won’t be. Because he’s not us.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Try to,” Regina urges. “Then maybe, after the wedding, we can talk.”

She turns away from Emma, then, making her way towards her office.

Getting some separation so she can get her emotions back in check.

All the while knowing that she has absolutely no chance of succeeding at that.

 

* * *

 

He can still remember that night; he can’t recall the car crash, and that’s probably for the best, but he can remember the smoke and music in the bar, and seeing his mother slumped over the counter, her fingers wrapped around a glass. The bartender had called for Regina, but gotten him, and he’d lied and said she was out. Because Regina had fallen asleep on the couch, and he’d seen her up making Emma’s favorite dinner, clearly upset about something, and then extremely upset as the night had gone on, because Emma hadn’t come up or answered her cell phone.

So he’d gone to the bar, and found Emma, and he’d gotten her back to his car.

Thinking he’d get her into bed, and then in the morning, his moms could talk.

Because clearly, they’d both fucked up somehow, and just needed to work it out.

Like always.

Tempers and emotions, and sometimes too much passion and stubbornness.

But it’d be fine in the morning.

And then he’d been waking up several mornings later, in a hospital bed.

Having barely survived a violent car crash.

Regina’s arms had wrapped around him, and he’d hugged her tight, holding onto her.

Finally asking about Emma.

“I don’t know,” Regina had replied, her voice shaking, her face flushing.

Later, he would understand that it was shame he saw there.

Shame at words said in anger to Emma.

Words that had convinced her to run away.

His mom had tried – he had tried – but to no avail.

Emma had rebuffed every attempt at communicating with her, every chance at reuniting.

So, he’d finally sent her a letter, believing she’d read it.

Simple and to the point: _We love you, and we_ _’ll never_ _stop hoping for you to come home._

He’d almost given up hope, though; almost stopped believing as the years had ticked away; he’d fallen in love and asked a girl to marry him, yet Emma had continued not responding.

Continued _not_ coming home.

But she’s here now.

She’s standing in the doorway of the loft, and David and Snow are hugging her. Her eyes are closed, and her body is slumped against them as her parents crush their daughter between them.

He turns to his buddies, and says softly, “Guys.”

Geoff, the one Regina likes the most because he's so mischievous, claps his hands together and says, “We need whiskey. We should go see what Her Majesty prefers.”

“Don’t get her going before the ceremony,” Henry murmurs, and wonders about the irony of talking about alcohol when it’d been a night of excessive drinking that had caused everything to go to hell. Bizarre because Emma isn’t an alcoholic (at least she wasn’t back then, he muses, realizing that he doesn’t actually know who this Emma is, anymore), but she’d been so upset.

It’s taken him a long time to understand, and to see things through adult eyes, but the one thing he’s come to realize over the years is that both of his mothers have so many scars on them.

Scars that Regina had inadvertently picked away at thanks to the frustration of her day.

Which had led to Regina’s own scars being ripped open when Emma had run away.

A cycle of pain for the two people he loves most in the world.

Hopefully, it’s time for that cycle to end.

“Worry not, Henry,” Geoff assures him. “Best behavior. Promise.”  He winks, and then he’s pushing the rest of the boys out of the room, grinning as he goes.

The door closes, then, and it’s just the four of them.

The Charming part of the family.

Emma exhales something of an uncomfortable laugh. “I’m sorry,” she starts.

“Emma,” David tries to cut in.

“No, I need…I need you guys to let me apologize. I had my reasons, but –”

David starts to protest again, but is silenced by Snow’s hand on his wrist. “Okay.”

Emma nods. “I thought I was…I thought I was doing the brave thing. I thought I was doing the responsible thing and walking away before I hurt everyone worse. It wasn’t brave, though, and it wasn’t strong. I was…I was just scared. I was so scared and it made sense in my head, but –”

Her voice chokes off into a sob, and then she’s crumbling forward.

It takes him a moment to realize that she’s crying.

His mom is crying.

God, but he’s seen far too much of both of his moms crying – enough for ten lifetimes.

He rushes to her, his arms circling around her, and then he’s sagging to the ground as she grabs at his shirt. He might not know her as well as he had five years ago, but he knows her enough to know that soon, she’s going to realize what she’s doing and try to retreat.

Because this is _his_ wedding day, and she’s going to think that she’s ruining it.

But she’s not, so he looks at his worried grandparents, and then looks back to his mother, and whispers softly, “I’m glad you’re home, Mom; today isn’t complete without _both_ of my moms.”

Emma holds on to him for a bit long, and he finds himself thinking about the last few years, and how many times he’d put a blanket over Regina after she’d cried herself to sleep. He’s kind of over how much they’ve both been hurting. While he understands that he can’t make all of the hurt just go away, he thinks that maybe he can do what he’s always done best, and help build to a bridge between them.

It’s his wedding day, and today, he’ll get to marry the woman he loves.

Seven years ago, he’d been the one to marry his mothers, ordained just for it. He’d stood up in front of the whole town, brought their hands together and pronounced them Mrs. Swan Mills.

Nothing in life is ever easy, and he’s holding Emma against him, looking up at his grandparents who have spent the last five years trying to keep this family together.

Nothing in life is ever easy, and his mothers will struggle to cross the bridge he hopes to build for them, just as they always have; maybe it won’t work, and maybe it won’t be enough, but he thinks that even if all that comes out of today is forgiveness, then maybe that’s enough.

It’s enough, at least he tells himself that it is.

He helps Emma up, looks right at her with eyes so bright and stubbornly optimistic and says, “Wedding is in three hours, and there’s a lot to do before then. You and mom -”

“Kid –”

“No, he’s right, Emma,” Snow cuts in. “Did you bring anything to wear?”

“I…no, I didn’t,” Emma admits somewhat sheepishly. “I didn’t want to be –” she shrugs her shoulders unable to say the almost painfully simple word “hopeful”.

But Henry knows, and his eyes are wise in a way that she doesn’t remember him being before; they’re kind and knowing and understanding in a way that reminds her of the years and memories that her fear and hurt had cost her. “You have something, right, Gram?”

“Not something I think she’d want to wear, but I know Regina does.” Snow fixes Emma with a piercing look. “I don’t believe that she ever cleaned out your closet. It’s all still in there.”

Emma shifts anxiously. “Maybe, I shouldn’t –”

“Mom,” Henry sighs impatiently, seeming so much like Regina that it actually makes her heart pound a little harder. “No matter what kinky shit you two have going on –”

“We don’t have…we’re not… _God_ ,” Emma mumbles out, her face flushing as she studiously avoids all of their faces; there’s obviously nothing of that sort going on, but _still_.

 Henry waves his hand dismissively, “Whatever. Either way, she’s not going to let you show up at my wedding all naked.” He grins at her. “Go find something. Make her – make _you_ smile.”

 “I wasn’t planning on going naked,” Emma grumbles. “Just –”

“I’ll start getting Henry ready,” David steps in. “Once the boys get back, we’ll finish getting dressed and meet you at the house. Where you two ladies should be going.”

“Yes, we should,” Snow agrees, and then she’s grabbing Emma’s arm, and pulling her towards the door. There’s one brief pause, and Henry finds himself reaching for her, allowing the contact to assure himself that yes, his mother is home, and maybe his family can soon be complete.

 _Maybe_.

There are still divorce papers out there somewhere, and maybe they’ll get signed.

But not if he has anything to say about it.

It’s his wedding day, and he’s going to marry the love of his life.

And hopefully, help his moms to see that they’re that for each other, too.

 

* * *

 

She threatens Geoff’s life when she catches him stealing one of her best bottles of bourbon, and he laughs knowing that she likes him too much to hurt him. With a great flourish of his arms, and a boyish wink, he assures her that he’ll leave some for her to toast with them later, drops into a pronounced mock bow, and then flees with the rest of Henry’s friends. Somewhere along the way, she’d pretty much adopted Henry’s college roommate, and she thinks that that somewhat fits considering how tough of a life he’d had for most of it. An orphan like Emma, he’d put himself through school, and somehow managed to keep his youthful spirit.

While he and Emma have an entirely different personality, his background, and his fight have always reminded her of her estranged wife, and in a weird way, having Henry and Geoff coming in and out of her life has always felt like, in spite of everything, Emma has always been nearby.

Which is ridiculous because Emma has never even met Geoff (or maybe she has now, Regina muses, knowing that Emma had gone to see Henry), and she’s missed seventy-five percent of Henry’s life; not because someone had taken her from their lives by force, but because she had left and…Regina takes a breath, and reminds herself that today is not the day for any of this.

Really, though, what did she expect would happen when she’d sent Emma the invitation?

Regina realizes that she hadn’t expected her to come back; she’d expected to give up on her.

Or at least telling herself that it’s time to.

But there’s a door opening downstairs, and that feels analogous in an obnoxious way, because Emma is walking through it with Snow, and all Regina can think about is the numerous times she’s drawn lines in the sand  about giving up on Emma, and she’s never really been able to.

Because she doesn’t want to.

Seven years ago, they’d gotten married in a beautiful ceremony near the flower-strewn pond in the middle of the park, and while Regina still believes that the first time she’d held Henry in her arms had been – and will always be - the happiest time in her life, that day had come a close second.

Oh, not because she’s some kind of sappy romantic – her views on marriage have always been complicated, and even marrying Emma hadn’t altered that – but because her family had been all around her, and they had been happy for her and Emma.

They’d wanted nothing more than for her to be happy.

For a time, she had been.

They had been.

Even up to that morning when everything had crashed around them, they had been happy.

They’d made love and touched and just been surrounded by each other.

Perhaps, if there had just been a few words said in that moment.

More words then, and less words in the hospital.

Now, though, there are footsteps on the stairs, and everything is moving so quickly.

Changing rapidly as her life always seems to.

“Hey,” Snow greets, entering the room.

“Where is she?” Regina asks, turning to face her, unable to hide the emotions on her face.

It’s somewhat poetic, she thinks, that she’s wearing only her dressing robe right now. Covered up, and yet somehow still exposed by how little armor she’s wearing in the face of all of this.

“In the hallway,” Snow notes. “She doesn’t want to –”

“Come into the bedroom she shared with me?” Regina huffs. “Ridiculous. _Swan_.”

“I’m trying to be respectful,” Emma sighs as she steps around her mother. She then points out the window, towards a car that is just driving away. “Henry’s friends really did come by?”

“They have all decided that my house is…theirs,” Regina says dryly, acting like she’s annoyed.

“They’re good boys,” Snow says. Then looks at Regina. “She needs something to wear, and didn’t think that you would be willing to help her.” She smiles at Emma’s look of annoyance.

“I did warn you that she spills everyone’s secrets eventually,” Regina cracks. Then, to Emma in exasperation, “Did you really think I’d send you away after I invited you!”

“I know. I just –”

“Snow, would you give us a few minutes, please?”

“Maybe that’s not a good idea.”

“She’s my wife, Snow.”

“And she’s my daughter and Henry’s mother. I’d like all of those things to be at his wedding.”

“If she’d stop being an idiot, we wouldn’t need to worry about that.”

“I am…right here,” Emma reminds them, waving her hand around.

“Yes, yes, hold that thought,” Regina says with a plastic smile. “Snow.”

“I’ll be right downstairs.” She squeezes Emma’s forearm, and then reluctantly leaves.

“She acts like I’m going to rip your heart out,” Regina grumbles. She steps away from Emma, and makes her way to the vanity, settling herself in front of it with a brush.

“She’s just…she wants today to go well.”

“Well, so do I. Which is why I invited you here, Emma. But I invited you, not…” she waves her hand towards Emma dismissively. “I didn’t marry a submissive docile woman. I know a lot has changed – I know that we have both changed – but I’m pretty sure that if you’re chasing thugs around enough to have busted ribs, you still have enough fight in you to walk into my room.”

 “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You already did that.”

“I –”

“Just as I hurt you,” Regina says, her voice softening. She then reaches back and offers her brush to Emma, her eyes settling deep into Emma’s, a plea and a challenge all at once.

Emma takes the brush from her. “It’s shorter again,” she notes. “I like it.”

“It’s easier and it...it does more,” Regina admits.

“I first met you with short hair,” Emma tells her. “I’m partial to it.” She slowly starts brushing it, following the natural flow and curl of it. “You know, they say things get easier the longer you’re doing them. I keep thinking that walking away from you and Henry and my parents would get easier if I could just…let time pass and keep to myself. So, every time there was a letter or a call or anything, I forced myself to ignore it because that’s what I thought the right thing to do was.”

“The right thing to do would have been to come home and tell me that I hurt you. It would have been right to come home, and face what happened, and let us fight our way through this together.”

“It’s taken me a long time to understand what…what happened. I thought you were right. I’m still not sure that you weren’t. I was…we spent so much time protecting our happiness, and I got to thinking that maybe we never had it if I wasn’t ever willing to challenge it and test it and –”

“Our entire relationship has been spent testing…what we feel for each other,” Regina contests. She turns towards Emma. “When we hated each other, something came around to make us have to understand each other. When we loved each other, something made us doubt that it was real. We have never not been challenged, Emma; wanting a few days when we’re not…is natural.”

“You’re talking about us like we’re present tense,” Emma observes.

Regina’s mouth opens, and then snaps closed. Finally, almost petulantly, she mutters, “Keep brushing.”

“So,” Emma starts, realizing that they need to lighten and ease things up a bit. “Tell me about Henry’s…soon-to-be wife. Do you like her as much as his friends?”

Regina chuckles. “As much as I will ever like anyone he chooses.” She smiles, then. “But, she’s a sweet girl...most of the time, anyway. She’s perhaps a bit too much like me for my liking –”

“Attitude or sass?”

“She’s a smartass.”

“So, attitude and sass,” Emma nods.

“Swan, you’re supposed to be brushing my hair, not flirting with me.”

“The facts are not flirting, Your Majesty,” Emma counters, unable to stop a smile from sliding across her lips as she glides the brush effortlessly through Regina’s still very dark and silky hair.

Oh, there are a few stray grays here and there, but you really have to go looking for them.

Suffice it to say, Regina looks as beautiful as she had five years ago.

And five years before that.

Even without a curse to stop time from ticking by.

“Perhaps the facts aren’t,” Regina lobs back. “But that most certainly was.”

Emma smiles slightly, and then steps backs. “No more tangles.”

It feels just a bit too much on the nose.

Regina sighs and stands up, her hands around her dressing robe to keep it together.

Which feels kind of pointless and weird considering how many times Emma has removed –

But it’s best not to think about that right now.

Or think about how she keeps wondering if Emma’s lips taste the same.

Instead, she manages to say, very quietly, “You need something to wear.” She nods her head, then, picking up steam. “I’m going to look very good. That means you have to look good, too.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you’re going to be standing next to me, Emma,” Regina tells her.

“Are you sure. I didn’t –”

“Did you come back to see Henry get married?”

“Yes. But also for you. I need you to know that.”

“I know that,” Regina tells, and then, against her better judgment, she’s lifting her hand up, and resting it against Emma’s face, her palm naturally curving, and Emma dipping towards it.

For a long moment, they just stand there like that, feeling the weight of all that they have been.

Their history, their love, their loss.

Finally, because this moment has to break or they both will, Regina removes her hand, and steps back, moving back to the relative safety of the vanity, her hand settled lightly on her belly.

It’s a clear sign of her nerves and anxiety, and Emma kind of knows the feeling.

So, she asks, “What am I wearing?”

“You’re an adult,” Regina notes. “Everything you had before, you still do.”

“My mom said…did really kept everything?”

“I burned a few things,” Regina admits. “So, I suppose, not everything is in there.”

“My jackets? The red one?”

“Never that,” Regina murmurs, and then she’s turning away, and walking towards the closet; she disappears into it for a few seconds before returning with several options – some of them slacks and blouses and a few of them very Emma like skirts and dresses. “Go ahead and try these on.”

“Why? Do you think they won’t fit me, anymore?” Emma jokes. “I’ve stayed in shape.”

“You have,” Regina confirms, perhaps just a bit too appreciatively. Clearing her throat, she clarifies with, I think you have sore ribs, and I don’t want you in pain. These are looser.”

 Emma looks at her like she’s trying to understand all the dynamics at play here. Finally, “You sent the invitation from the Mother of the Groom to Ms. Emma Swan.”

That earns her a massive smile from Regina. “Did it annoy you?”

“Well, I suppose it was better than just…Miss Swan.”

“I admit, I considered that,” Regina tells, her dark eyes twinkling mischievously. “I’ve never entirely understood your hatred of that, but…I confess that it crossed my mind to see if I could get a reaction by sending you the invitation with that on it. Our son convinced me not to.”

“Good kid.” She reaches out and takes one of the dresses from her. “I’ll…be right back.”

Their eyes meet, and Regina almost asks her to promise.

It’s only her dignity that stops her.

So, she smiles, and turns away again, and tries not to feel Emma’s eyes on her back.

And tries not to hear the footsteps walking away again.

One day – hopefully one day very soon, if they’re to have a chance – she won’t.

 

* * *

 

Emma chooses a kind of long skirt summer look. It’s not quite her usual, but nor does it seem completely wrong for her, either. Light colored and subtle, and most important, not tight.

When she steps into the room wearing it, Regina tries not to remember the last time that she had.

A different kind of outing that had ended up with them staying in for an entire weekend.

She’s a bit surprised, thinking about that now, that the skirt had survived that weekend.

She’s pretty sure that the dress she’d been wearing hadn’t.

“Good?” Emma asks.

“Very,” Regina tells her.

“Hair up or down? I’m thinking up.”

“Up,” Regina agrees, and then she swirls her hand and magic cascades around Emma, dancing through her golden locks and leaving her hair sitting lightly atop her head. Not overly elegant, but not sloppy, either. It shows off the slim column of her neck, and the well-defined cut of her jawline. Regina nods appreciatively, her eyes glazing over as she takes Emma in.

“So, what about you?” Emma asks, unwilling to indulge in just how good it feels to have Regina looking at her like that; it’d been somewhat common during both their courtship and marriage, Regina never one to be held back from the things and people she’d desired most.

And she’d always been quite clear about just how much she desired Emma.

“You’ll see,” Regina tells her. She gestures towards the hallway. “Your mother is pacing.”

“She’s still down there?”

“Yes, seems we forgot about her. Oops.”

They both share a laugh at that.

Then Emma asks, “If we were still…would you make me leave while you changed?”

“Yes,” Regina tells her. “Because I still like my entrances.”

“Fair enough.”

“I suppose the only difference is…I’d have let you undress me first.”

“Have you…let others…undress you?” Emma asks, and then immediately regrets the question because not only does she not particularly want to know, but it’s probably also not her business.

When you bail out on a marriage without more than a note and a cloud of dust behind you, the reality is that you’re not really entitled to getting upset about who shares your wife’s bed.

Oddly, though, Regina answers her question with a smirk, “Have you?”

“Yes,” Emma admits, “Twice.”

“Twice,” Regina confirms, looking mildly uncomfortable about the admission; not because she’s ashamed – she’d just taken care of her needs when she’d had them – but because she’s suddenly aware of just how much she had only really wanted Emma. “Neither one went anywhere. I –”

“Missed you,” Emma finishes for them. She shakes her head in disgust. “God, I fucked up.”

“Yes, you did,” Regina acknowledges. “And so did I. Which makes the question…now what?”

“Are you asking me or –”

“I suppose I’m asking both of us,” Regina allows, a hand weaving through her hair. She frowns, then, because all that kind of nervous gesture can do is mess it up again. “And…I don’t know.”

“I know I want you,” Emma tells her.

“Do you? Because you seem tentative about everything. And if we…if we start again…I want my wife, Emma. The one who challenged me and told me off when I was being an asshole. Who wasn’t afraid of me and who would call me out when I was being unreasonable and awful. Who loved me in spite of the worst of myself and somehow managed to always see the best in me.”

“I love you.”

“I believe you, but I need the rest of it, too. Especially the challenging part. I need that person.”

“I know,” Emma tells her. She gestures towards the doorway. “I’ll go check on my mom.”

“Emma, don’t –”

“You told me that I needed to try to understand how Henry isn’t like us. I think you were trying to make a point about us – about how you see us. How I used to. Okay, then: let me try to understand. Let me…let me try to remember what I think I forgot. Let me try to do this right.”

“You’re not running away?”

“I came back.”

“You still ran. How do I know –”

“Trust me.”

“I want to,” Regina tells her, and seems almost amazed by the words she’s saying. She gets ahold of her reactions quickly, enough, though, and adds, “I’m not sure I know how, anymore.”

“That’s fair,” Emma acknowledges. “But I came back. Let me have…one more chance.” She steps closer to Regina, stopping just short of touching her. “Let me try to come home again.”

“And if it doesn’t work? If we can’t make this work?”

“The papers are in my bag. If you want me to sign them, I will. I know that I don’t want to.”

Their eyes meet again, and Regina finds herself wanting nothing more than to step forward and fall into Emma’s arms. It would be so easy to do that now, but this isn’t the time for that.

Henry will be getting married in less than two hours now.

Their drama will have to wait until afterwards.

It occurs to her, then, that first the time in a long time, they actually have an afterwards.

They actually have an opportunity for something if she’ll just allow it.

She lifts her head, and says, “After the ceremony, you and me, Swan, we’re going to have it out.”

Emma tilts her head, looking vaguely amused. “Is that a threat or –” 

“A promise, my love,” Regina says, her voice so quiet and sincere that any of Emma’s attempts to joke away this moment die on the spot. Because Regina is looking at her with so much need and want and desire and so much love and hurt, and it’s everything all at once on display for her.

It’s their chance.

Maybe it’s a small one, but it’s still a chance.

So, Emma smiles in a way that lights up her face, and says quietly, “I’ll be there.”

A promise of her own.

 

* * *

 

“Can I come in?” Regina asks, knocking on the door to her study. Peering around it, she sees David and Zelena both in there with Henry and the rest of his college buddies. Her sister had assigned herself as the wedding planner (and perhaps it’s a sign of how fair Zelena has come over the years that the occasionally random chaos she tends to inspire has been minimal and mostly welcomed), and so is now staring directly at Henry, ensuring that he’s ready to go.

Mostly, she’s fidgeting at his tie, clearly still uncertain about what to do with it.

She’s learned a lot about this world since coming over, but ties aren’t one of those things.

“Oh, good, you’re here!” Zelena announced. “If you’re done flirting with Emma –”

“I wasn’t.”

“You absolutely were,” Zelena contests. “Anyway, fix this.” She gestures at Henry’s tie.

“Of course,” she steps into the room, showing off the elegant white coat that she is wearing over the most certainly equally stunning dress beneath it. Stepping up next to Henry, she touches his face lovingly, and then brings her hands down to the now mangled tie there. Turning to look over at David, she teasingly asks, “Why did you let my sister make a massacre out of this tie?”

“She insisted she could do it,” David chuckles. “I know better than to argue with Mills women.”

“Fair enough.” She turns her head slightly, she takes in the rest of Henry’s wedding party. All of them – friends from college, and a few from around Storybrooke - are dressed in tuxedos, their scarlet red vests and cummerbunds sharpening up the look and turning hooligans into princes.

Well, except for Geoff. 

“No,” she says, pointing at him. “The neon green handkerchief has to go. You’re in red.”

“Told you she’d notice it immediately,” Henry tells him.

“I warned him, too,” David says, smiling brightly.

“I think it looks sharp,” Geoff replies. “Nick?”

Henry’s other groomsman shakes his head. “Whatever she says. That’s what I agree with.”

“Chickenshit. But hey, Zelena agrees with me. Solidarity in green.”

“Don’t you dare take his side,” Regina challenges.

“Solidarity in green,” Zelena agrees, and then bumps fists with Geoff.

“You’ve ruined my sister,” Regina tells him.

“I think we co-ruined each other,” he contests, getting a nod of agreement from Zelena.

Regina rolls her eyes, then directs her attention back to Henry. “Did Emma drop by already?”

“Yeah. Grandma took her to meet Sara.”

“Is it true that Emma is…the Emma as in…” Geoff starts to move his hands as if to gesture.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” David says.

“I was just about to say ‘as in your wife’,” Geoff assures him.

“I’m sure you were,” Regina chuckles. “And yes, that’s Emma. It’s complicated.”

“Welcome to the story of all our lives,” Zelena drawls. “Regina and Emma: complicated.”

“You know what,” David says suddenly. “All of us – Zelena, Geoff – we should probably go check and make sure things are ready to go. I believe that we are all t-minus fifteen now.”

“We keep getting kicked out of rooms,” Geoff observes. “Starting to get a complex here.”

“Get rid of the handkerchief, and maybe you can stay,” Regina replies, smirking at him.

“Nah.” He winks and then he’s out, led towards the back by David.

Zelena holds back, looking right at Henry. “I did my best,” she says.

A quiet and decidedly honest moment from a woman who has tried so very hard to make this day wonderful for her nephew and for the family who has embraced her, and allowed her a second chance she’d never believed she would ever have. She smiles at him now, unsure, but hopeful.

Henry steps forward and hugs her.

“It’s going to be perfect,” he says. “Everything is perfect.”

“Good,” Zelena nods, then lifts her chin. “Good. Then I’ll be…going to check on your wife.”

“Which wife?” Henry asks, trying to sound innocent in his question, but failing spectacularly.

“Both of them,” Zelena answers, and then winks at Regina.

“Zelena –”

“Mother-son thing. Super important and emotionally touching; you know I hate such...displays of earnest emotion. Makes my teeth hurt. I really should be going,” Zelena crows, and then she’s out of the room.

 “They’re all idiots,” Regina notes with an exasperated shake of her hair.

“You seem to find that an attractive quality in the people you take in,” Henry suggests.

“If you’re trying to make a point, I should probably remind you that I didn’t take your mother in. Not like that, anyway. She just kind of came in to my life like a tornado intent on changing the entire landscape of my life. No matter what I did, she refused to go away. Until she did.”

It’s a sobering reality check for both of them, a reminder of how their world had turned inside out.

Henry nods, then. “Yeah, but she’s back now. And you love her.”

“With every part of me,” Regina admits, a small smile appearing on her lips as her history with Emma plays behind her eyelids; the smile fades as she remembers how it had ended.

As she remembers the very minute when she’d realized that Emma had left them – left _her_.

“Are you about to tell me that love isn’t enough?”

“Not today,” she assures him. “But, Emma and I have a lot to work through. She still left me, Henry, and I’ve had a lot of people…being left is something I don’t know how to forgive.”

“Are you willing…try?”

“Will you be disappointed in me if I’m not?” she asks, her brow furrowed in worry.

“No,” he says immediately. “Disappointed at what you could have had, but not in you, Mom.”

Regina swallows hard against the emotions she feels, such fierce love and pride in her son, and in her wonderful relationship with him. She exhales, “Well, for what it’s worth, I am willing to at least…hear Emma out. Because I screwed up badly, too. And I owe her – I owe me – the honesty of accepting my own faults. So, at the very least, I promise you that I’ll listen. Really…listen.”

“Good,” he says. “You were both hurt so much by this. We all were.”

“I know,” Regina allows. “And that’s part of it. I kept telling myself –” Regina stops abruptly, laughing just a bit. When he looks at her curiously, she says, “It’s a bit strange to me to be talking to you about this. Sometimes, I have to stop and remember that you’re a man now.”

“I know things aren’t black and white, and people get hurt in relationships even when no one intends for that to happen,” he assures her. “But even if I’m a man now, I’m still your son, and what I want more than anything else is for the two of you to never be hurting.” He holds up his hand when she starts to speak. “I get it: you think that life is pain, but maybe not always?”

“Love has never seemed to go my way,” she reminds him.

“Yes, it did. You and Emma, you were good together. You were _really_ good.”

“We were, but we also weren’t talking when we needed to. We were both so afraid of losing one another that we created a situation where we stopped allowing ourselves to talk things out.”

“That was then. Now, you have no choice but to talk them out.”

“We have a choice,” Regina contests, and perhaps it’s because the idea of not having one rubs her in the all the wrong ways; if she and Emma are to have another go, it _has_ to be their choice.

“Fine, then choose to,” Henry pleads. “Choose to be honest with each other.”

 “And what if it’s too much, Henry? What if too much happened back then?”

“You were the Evil Queen. She was the Dark One. I don’t believe in ‘too much’.” He grins, his green eyes reminding her so much of Emma even as his persistence reminds her of herself.

“You’ll never give up hope, will you?”

“In you being happy? In Emma being happy? In the two of you together? No, never.”

“Oh, my sweet little prince,” she murmurs, her hands on both sides of his face.

“Not so little, anymore,” he reminds her.

“But always my prince.” She backs away from him, a hand on both of his cheeks as she takes him in, studying the handsome young man he has become. “It’s time to go marry your princess,” she says, sweeping hair away from his brow. “And I am so proud of you. I hope you know that.”

“Mom, you’re doing it,” he says. “You’re about to start crying. We said no crying. We said”

“We did,” she admits.

And then they’re forehead to forehead, arms around each other.

There’s a knock on the door, then, Geoff appearing in the doorway with Archie.

Recognizing the moment between mother and son, and feeling the distance between he and Regina, even in spite of how much of a surrogate mother she has become to him (and in doing so, again reminding Regina so much of Emma) Geoff says quietly, “Sorry,” and steps back.

“No, it’s fine,” Regina says, drawing back, but squeezing Henry’s hand. “What’s up?”

“Five to the hour,” Archie tells them. “It’s about time.”

Henry nods, flashes a beaming smile and states, “Today’s going to be amazing, Mom.”

“It will be,” she agrees, knowing that he means more than just him and his soon-to-be wife.

She turns, then, towards Geoff and lifts an eyebrow to him. One of her hands reaches out, and she lightly squeezes his bicep as if to reassure him. With a grin, he extends his arm. “Shall we?”

“We shall,” she agrees, shedding her coat to reveal a stunning cream and navy-blue dress that flows around her body elegantly. Not quite matronly, it’s also subtle enough not to overwhelm.

But no less stunning, and Henry finds himself smiling knowing how Emma will react to it.

Knowing that neither one of his mothers is going to be able to take their eyes off of each other.

 “Ready?” Archie asks.

“Yeah,” Henry grins, watching as Geoff leads Regina from the room, the two of them bantering as she tries to convince him to lose the neon green handkerchief, knowing she’ll never succeed.

That won’t stop her from trying.

Unimaginable odds and insane circumstances never have before.

Henry’s counting on them not stopping her with Emma, either.

He turns to Archie, and says, “Let’s go get married.”

 

* * *

 

Because they didn’t know if Emma would be showing up, she hadn’t been planned into the wedding processional; it turns out not to matter much, because the ushers lead her to the front row, to the fold-up chair next to where Regina will eventually be seated.

“Hey,” Snow murmurs, sitting next to her on the opposite side from the open chair. On the opposite side of where Regina will be sitting, Zelena is watching her with judgment in her eyes.

Emma thinks that convincing Zelena to give her a second chance just might be harder than convincing Regina to do so; even before she’d left town, Zelena had been incredibly protective of her little sister, and the relationship she had fought for with her, and eventually forged there.

“Hey,” Emma says back. “This is –”

“Wild,” Snow agrees. “Imagine it from my point of view: my daughter’s son is getting married.”

“Yeah,” Emma chuckles. Then, quietly, “I know that this isn’t the time or place for this; I mean this is Henry’s wedding, and my drama has no business here, but every time I close my eyes –”

“You see yourself marrying her.”

“She was so beautiful that day.”

“She was,” Zelena nods.

Pointedly ignoring Zelena (but only after a glare thrown her way,” Snow says, “So were you.” She reaches out and threads her fingers with Emma’s. “Seeing you up there smiling, it was everything that I ever wanted for you. Maybe I didn’t ever think it would be with Regina, but we’ve all come a long way, and I guess it just seemed right then, and you were so happy.”

“I was.”

“You were,” Zelena inserts again, earning her another glare from Snow.

“You can get back to that.”

“What if we can’t?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t,” Zelena says. “Maybe you should run away again.”

“Zelena,” Snow sighs. “Please.”

“No,” Emma inserts. “She has the right to be pissed at me. And to want to protect Regina.”

“Because you didn’t,” Zelena hisses. “And I was the one there while she cried. About you.”

Emma allows the words to wash over her, each of them like a strike against her already sore ribs; they’re necessary, she thinks – necessary so she understands what she has to make amends for.

“You’re right,” Emma says, her honesty taking Zelena aback enough to temporarily quiet her.

Recognizing an opening, Snow asks, “Is Regina open to trying?”

“She said we’d ‘have it out’ after the wedding.”

“That sounds like Regina’s version of ‘yes’,” Snow notes wryly.

“I have no right to expect anything,” Emma reminds her.

“You don’t,” Zelena agrees. “And I wouldn’t take you back –”

“Yes, you would,” Snow says, her eyes meeting Zelena’s for a long beat, relaying that yes, she understands Zelena’s argument and why she’s so upset with Emma, and even respect it. Then, turning her attention back to Emma, she says, “As for expect? No, maybe you don’t have any right to that, but you do have every right to hope for a second chance. There’s nothing wrong with hope.” She squeezes Emma’s hand. “You don’t take advice very often from me, Emma –”

“If I had, would it have been ‘don’t run’?” Emma quips, her anxiety clear.

“For starters, yes,” Snow replies. “But more than that, it would be that if you and Regina aren’t going into this with both of you being willing to accept your faults and then moving forward, then it’s not worth it. Relationships – marriages – aren’t supposed to be about one person chasing after the other to apologize. It has to be a partnership or you are both wasting each other’s time.”

“I know,” Emma says. “But I did –”

“Leave,” Zelena says, arms together in front of her, not quite ready to surrender her anger.

 “And you’ll have to earn that trust back,” Snow finishes.

“Do you think I can?” Emma queries, this time looking right at Zelena.

“I think that she loves you,” Zelena says after a few long seconds. “And is happier with you than without you.” She shakes her head in disgust. “You broke her heart by abandoning her, Swan; I’m not sure that I can ever forgive you for that. But…she’s not me so maybe she will forgive you.” The words are grudgingly delivered, full of raw hurt on Regina’s behalf, but they’re also honest.

Realizing that since Zelena has chosen to advocate for Regina (something, which, Snow suspects that Regina wouldn’t be entirely for, even if touched by it), Snow chooses to ensure that Emma knows she’s not alone in this. “But it’s a two-way street, sweetheart. Just as you have to earn her trust back, she has to earn yours as well. You both have to be in this or it won’t work.”

Emma’s about to answer, about to admit how afraid she is that Regina will change her mind about ‘having it out’, afraid that too much time has passed for a genuine second chance, but before the words can come, soft music starts to play, and people around them begin moving.

“It’s time,” Snow breathes, wide-eyed and excited in a way only she can truly be.

It’s actually kind of refreshing and wonderful to see.

But not nearly as wonderful as seeing Henry coming out with Archie, looking so handsome and mature, his eyes bright and full of happiness. He sees Emma and grins, winking over at her.

And then there’s Regina.

Walking down the aisle arm-in-arm with Henry’s Best Man; the music is playing so the words Regina is saying to Geoff are being drowned out, but by the bemused look on his face, Emma can guess that Regina is trying to get her way about something, and he’s just not budging.

She’s stunning, Emma, thinks, from the heels all the way up to the perfectly Regina-like dress.

God, how she’d missed just being able to appreciate her.

Casually, honestly, and organically.

As wives tend to do with each other.

She turns her head as Geoff and Regina approach, and then Geoff is stopping in front of Emma, his shoulder moving outwards as if he’s readying to shift Regina to her. “Your wife, ma’am.”

Regina rolls her eyes at him, but doesn’t refuse when Emma extends her elbow out; instead, she loops her arm into it, smirks ever so slightly, and then studiously ignores Snow’s knowing eyes.

As well Zelena’s piercing fiercely judgmental gaze.

And Henry’s hopeful smile.

All of that changes a few moments later, though, because then the music is altering, and there’s a soft ballad playing as Henry’s beautiful wife-to-be starts down the aisle with her beaming father.

All of the eyes of those gathered here are on the stunning bride, except for Regina and Emma’s.

Regina’s are on Henry, seeing the pure joy and adoration written across his face.

Emma’s start on Henry as well, but then slide to Regina, taking in her wife’s bright smile.

Seven years ago, this had been them.

No, there hadn’t been ballads playing, just simple orchestra as they’d walked in from opposite sides, David holding her arm and Archie holding Regina’s as they’d made their way to Henry.

Her hand moves to her neckline, to the chain there with her wedding band on it. She’s about to touch it when she feels Regina’s fingers touch the back of her other wrist; instinctively, despite all the time that has passed for them, Emma turns her hand and allows Regina to clasp it.

“It’s okay,” Regina murmurs, and Emma’s not entirely sure what Regina’s referring to (a thousand things in her minds, and yet possibly none of them), but she still exhales.

She allows her eyes to slide shut, and allows herself to just feel everything.

She allows herself to feel the gentle breeze tickling her skin, permits herself to indulge in the touch of Regina’s shoulders against her own, and surrenders to the softness of Regina’s hand.

To the familiarity of all of these things, and the desperate desire she has to have them all again.

The thought that she might fail, that too much time might have passed is enough to make her heart start to pound; almost immediately, she winces, suddenly feeling her badly busted ribs.

Suddenly feeling everything all at once.

As if on cue, Regina’s hand squeezes hers tighter, and again she hears, “It’s okay, my love.”

She really wishes Regina would stop calling her that.

The very idea that Regina might stop makes her blood run cold.

It’s Henry’s laughter that helps her focus again; a short chuckle as Geoff underhand baseball tosses him the ring (Emma sees Regina wince at that, and then sees Geoff grin over at her). It’s the sight of their son so very happy that reminds her that today is a good one, no matter what.

But, she thinks, as Regina continues to hold her hand, maybe it can be an even better one.

Perhaps, Emma thinks as Archie declares Henry and Sara husband and wife, and they follow up their first kiss with a tight embrace, today can be a new beginning in more ways than one.

 

* * *

 

The first dance is the new Mrs. Sara Mills and her father; it’s lovely, sweet and tender.

It’s nothing to compared to when Henry takes Regina out on the dance-floor.

Their steps perfectly measured and perfectly in-sync.

She wipes at her eyes, and he grins and says, “Mom, we promised.”

She insists that tears in her eyes is not remotely the same thing as crying.

Then says, “Now go dance with your other mother. Your idiot Best Man wants my attention.”

He kisses her on the cheek, and steps back so as to allow Geoff to take her from him. Before they’re even two feet away, they’r **e** already bantering about who is supposed to lead (Henry thinks he hears Regina say something about the handkerchief again). Laughing at what has become familiar and right, he turns towards Emma’s hand, takes her head and spins her around.

She laughs, and hugs him tight, and says, “I’m so glad I didn’t miss this.”

“Me, too,” he replies. “It wouldn’t have been right without all of us.”

“No,” she agrees, because very few things are right without all of them.

 

* * *

 

Everyone is smashed drunk.

Excluding Emma and including Regina (she’s actually somewhere beyond smashed thanks to having been coerced into going shot for shot with Geoff, and the rest of Henry’s groomsmen).

Emma chooses to stay sober, not wanting to remind anyone of that terrible night.

Those screeching wheels, and Henry bleeding out against the steering wheel.

She’d love to stop remembering that night as well.

Would love –

“Emma,” she hears, a soft voice behind her. “Did you come home to be so broody?”

She turns, and smiles at Regina. Smiles at the light haziness she sees there; for all of the ugliness in Regina’s background, she’s always been a rather surprising drunk. Goofy and happy instead of morose and violent as most might assume her to be. Light, easy and almost physically fluid.

“Just thinking,” Emma confesses.

“Can we do that later?” Regina pleads. “I just want you right now; I have missed you terribly, and I have never been especially good at handling missing things. I’m not any better at it now” She steps towards Emma, then, her arms immediately sweeping around Emma’s mid-section.

“You sure you won’t regret this in the morning?” Emma asks, sounding like she’s teasing even if she’s not. Even if she’s worried that some of the movement of today will be gone tomorrow.

“We’re still wearing clothes,” Regina answers, leaning in and nuzzling Emma’s neck.

“We are,” Emma concurs. She glances across the room, taking in all the dancing and laughing, and just the general easy joy all around her. Her eyes catch Zelena’s (she’s standing over with Geoff and several of the men and women from Henry and Sara’s wedding party; all of them holding shot glasses in their hands) and holds them there, the two of them caught in a staring contest.

A clear and unmistakable challenge being issued. Emma offers a small smile; Zelena nods and looks away, returning to her drinks and to the loud frivolity of this raucous family celebration.

“I wish we weren’t,” Regina says into her ear, teeth scraping against her earlobe.

“Me, too,” Emma says, and then moves her hands to Regina’s face and gently lifts it so that they’re looking at each other instead; Regina is clearly drunk, but she’s far from incoherent.

“Dance with me?” Regina asks, her voice so quiet that Emma has to almost strain to hear it.

“Just as long as this isn’t goodbye.”

“Oh, Emma,” Regina says, and then her hand is on Emma’s face, her fingers gliding down along smoothly defined planes. “No matter what happens, I’m not saying goodbye to you ever again.”

“I don’t –”

“Even if you sign the –”

Regina stops, swallowing hard, suddenly seeming very sober.

“You wanted a dance,” Emma says instead, realizing that now is neither the time nor the place for this; Henry and his party have moved into the middle of the dance floor, and everyone is happy.

She wants to be as well.

Even if it’s just for tonight.

It’s not as easy for them because the weight of half a decade is on them, but for a few minutes at least, she thinks they can control that pressure and choose to just enjoy being close to one another again after so much time apart. So, she puts out her hand, and sweeps Regina close to her body, and then they’re just swaying together, Regina’s head settled lightly on her shoulder.

Emma says softly, her words a breathy whisper, “I love you. I never stopped. I never could.”

“You wanted to,” Regina suggests, unable to hide the hurt from her voice.

“It would have been easier. That’s what I thought. But it would have been a lie. I love you, and no matter what choice you – _we_ – make, I’m going to love you until my last breath, Regina.”

Regina’s response is to tuck in closer to her, arms tightening.

She murmurs something like, “I love you, too.”

Soft, and once again barely audible, her words swallowed by her closeness to Emma.

Emma thinks that she wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

* * *

 

She practically pours Regina into bed a few hours later, which feels equal parts surreal and also deeply intimate. This is her wife, she thinks as she removes shoes and stockings from her.

A woman, whom she has touched in almost every way imaginable.

A woman, whom she has held during some of the best and worst moments of their lives.

Until she’d stopped doing it.

Until they both had.

“I… _we_ really screwed things up, didn’t we?” she asks as she pulls the blankets up over a half-dressed Regina; she’d considered removing the rest of her clothes, but decided it wasn’t her place to do so – not without absolute permission from Regina to do so once again. She’d only removed her stockings because Regina has always struggled to sleep with anything on her feet.

“Will you stay with me?” Regina murmurs, her eyes closed against the soft lighting of the room; there’s almost no chance that she won’t wake up with a massive hangover in the morning.

Emma almost tells her what a crazy loaded question that is, but thinks better of it. Instead, she suggests, “Let me get your make-up off so you don’t wake up hungover and broken out, okay?”

Regina’s eyes open, and she smiles lazily, “I have perfect skin.”

“I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Okay.” Her eyes droop closed again.

Taking that as allowance, Emma rises and makes her way to the bathroom, allowing a flash of memory as she takes in the familiar surfaces and walls that had been her everyday normal.

This place had been home. From bedroom to bathroom to kitchen.

She wants it back.

She feels the sting of tears in her eyes, and her hand grips the edge of the counter. It’s brief, and she bites her hand to stop sound from getting out. To stop her sobs from being heard.

Her ribs ache, but her heart hurts more.

She wants to not just come home, but be home.

She wants to burn those goddamned divorce papers to ashes. But first things first.

One promise kept at a time.

She straightens herself, winces again, takes a deep breath, and moves to the sink. She wets a washcloth, and then heads back into the bedroom, sitting down next to Regina on the bed.

“You were crying,” she hears from Regina, whose eyes remain closed as she speaks.

Emma smiles to herself. “You always know.”

“I know you.” Her voice fades out as she finishes. “I knew eventually you’d come back to me.”

“It’s a family thing,” Emma murmurs, and thinks she means a hundred different things with that statement. Leaning in, she gently starts wiping the make-up away from Regina’s face, not at all surprised when she notices that Regina has fallen sound asleep in the middle of her ministrations.

Dropping the cloth to the nightstand, Emma bends down and removes her own shoes and socks. And then hesitates.

Regina had asked her to stay. But she’s also drunk and –

She feels Regina move against her body, nuzzling towards her even in her sleeping state.

Emma lets out a breath, and then lies down beside Regina, pausing for half a second before she slips an arm around her wife’s body (still her wife, even when estranged, she thinks, and there’s a curious warmness in the middle of her chest at the thought of this) and brings her close.

It’s the smell of lavender and cinnamon and the light brush of Regina’s hair against her cheek.

It’s the steadiness of a heartbeat against her own.

It’s the whisper of breath in and out; the realization that she’s not alone.

And doesn’t ever want to be again.

Her fingers lace with fingers, both of their hands around the front of Regina’s belly.

Her ribs are busted, pained and sore, but in this moment, nothing beyond the years hurt.

Emma closes her eyes.

 

* * *

 

The shifting of weight on the mattress is what makes Emma open her eyes hours later.

The touch of lips against her throat is what makes her breathing catch.

Hands against her hips, sliding down, a slight weight upon her torso.

Thankfully (or not thankfully, depending on a particular point of view, Emma supposes) her busted ribs protest the new weight upon them, and it’s enough to force all of her wits to gather together into an understanding that this is neither an informed choice nor an especially good idea.

Even if Regina’s lips against her skin feel _really_ good.

“Regina,” she says, hands very gently against the other woman’s shoulders. “Hey, hey.”

Thankfully, Regina is still inebriated enough to not push it, still sleepy enough to not be doing anything actively; one small push away, and she’s curling back against Emma’s side, her head tucking in against her shoulder, nose pressed up against the suddenly very sensitive skin there.

“You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?” Emma asks, pressing a light kiss to Regina’s hair.

Her only response is the very slightest of snores, quiet and almost delicate.

“Yeah, you are,” Emma answers for herself.

 

* * *

 

It’s an amazing sight, really: Regina sprawled out on her belly, her hair a mess, her face pressed into the pillow, a soft mewling kind of whimper emerging from somewhere in the mess of things.

For a moment, Emma does nothing besides stare at her, captivated and entranced.

As madly in love as she has ever been.

Until Regina whines out a muffled, “Aspirin, Swan. Or I’ll light you on fire.”

“In your state, Your Majesty” Emma cracks, “You’re more likely to light yourself on fire.”

“I’ll take you with me.”

“Promise?”

Regina lifts her head, her bloodshot exhausted eyes somehow still managing to be intense. “If that was your idea of flirting, I’m afraid, my love, that your skills have gone to absolute shit.”

“She says as she mixes romance and insults,” Emma cracks, standing up from the bed.

Gently, though – making sure not to jostle Regina or make the headache even worse.

“Aspirin,” Regina demands again.

“It’s on its way,” Emma chuckles. She looks over at the bathroom, then has a different idea, choosing to see if her magic works again now that she’s back in Storybrooke once more.

A flick of her hand, and ah, there’s the little white pill bottle, and a glass of water.

“Aspirin,” she announces, presenting both the pills and the glass.

“Ugh, better. I’m going to kill Geoff and Zelena; this is their fault.”

“No, you’re not,” Emma tells her with a grin, thinking about watching Regina on the dancefloor, and then thinking about her own small dance with her. “You enjoyed yourself.”

Regina smiles at that (it’s a vaguely sickly smile, but one all the same). “I enjoyed being able to celebrate Henry’s nuptials with everyone I love around me,” she counters.  “ _Everyone_ , Emma.”

“We have a lot to talk about,” Emma says.

“We do. And once my head stops pounding like a metal drum, I’ll make us some breakfast –”

“It’s lunchtime,” Emma teases. She gestures towards the heavy drapes that had been pulled closed.

Regina smiles again, this one more real and full as she understands that Emma had pulled them for her in order to keep the sun from hurting her eyes. “Fine, I’ll make us some lunch and then –”

“You owe me nothing,” Emma insists. Were it anyone else besides Regina, the assumption might be Emma was only talking about the offer of breakfast, but they both know better than that.

Their lives together and apart have always been more complicated than just surface readings.

“You’re my wife,” Regina tells her, clear affection in the word. Her hand lifts, and she runs her fingers through her tangled hair, the perfect diamond on her ring finger catching Emma’s eye.

“Which means what?”

“It means we both owe each other honesty. Whatever path that takes us down.” She tosses back the pills, and chases them with water. “But that can wait a few hours. Until I don’t want to die.”

Emma chuckles. Then, as if remembering, “I know that a lot has changed while I was away, but you used to like scented bubble baths to help with the really bad headaches. Still the case?”

“I haven’t changed that much,” Regina tells her, rolling her head and looking right up at her.

“Okay,” Emma murmurs. “Then…one hot bath coming right up.”

Regina gazes back at her, and there’s a few seconds where Emma thinks that Regina is about to suggest that Emma join her in the eventual bath, but then she smiles and says, “Thank you.”

Emma nods, and makes her way to the bathroom.

Still running away just a little bit, she realizes.

But this time, she’s planning on running right back home again.

 

* * *

 

There are two baths.

The first one goes cold because Regina sleeps right through it; Emma’s not terribly surprised by this, to be fair. Over their years together, she’d learned just how much migraines tended to take out of Regina, and while hangovers aren’t exactly the same, they’re close enough that Regina passing out comes as little surprise to her. So she empties the tub, and lets Regina doze, choosing to sit in a nearby chair, watching her estranged wife as she rests.

Around one in the afternoon, both of their phones start buzzing; Henry calling to check in.

And Zelena calling on Regina’s phone.

She answers Henry’s call with a bit of back-and-forth about the previous night and hangovers; with lots of jokes about how it’s for the best that they never tell Geoff about Regina’s hangover, or else he’ll never let her live down the fact that he’d managed to out-drink her. Emma agrees to that easily.

Regina has her pride, after all.

As for Zelena, well, she stares at Regina’s phone for a while, and considers replying, but then chooses not to answer it because that discussion is between sisters, and Zelena is worried about hers.

She finishes her conversation with Henry, promises him that she’ll have Regina call him once she is awake and lucid, and then puts the phone down; and returns to watching Regina sleep.

Around two, she gets up, and draws another bath, warm and scented.

And then leans over Regina, shakes her gently and says, “Hey, time to get up.”

Regina groans, “No.”

“It’s mid-afternoon.”

Her only response is a whimper.

“Headache still as bad.”

“No.”

“Headache still bad?”

Regina looks up at her, her hair curling around her face. “Emma?”

“At your service.”

“So, it wasn’t all just a dream?”

“Depends. Good dream or bad dream?”

“Right,” Regina sighs. “Complicated dream.”

“Yeah. Bath is ready.”

“Still?”

“I drew you a second one.”

“Oh.” She rises up, slowly and delicately, wincing slightly. A hand at her elbow steadies her, and she looks into Emma’s eyes as she balances herself, seeing the old familiarity.

The old safety and security.

A strange feeling considering how off-balance Emma has her feeling right at the moment.

“Emma,” she says, and then her hand is lifting and settling on Emma’s cheek, “Why did you leave? Why didn’t you give us a chance?” She’s asked a version of this question several times over the last day, but only now does it feel so straight-forward and honest; so raw and real.

So down to the bones of everything that stands between them and needs to be removed.

“Because I was afraid. I thought if we actually had it out, I’d find out it was all true.”

“All true?”

“Everything you said to me that night. I knew you were angry and scared, but so was I, and I thought that if we were able to talk quietly, I would find out that you meant every word of it.”

“I made you feel that unloved?” Regina asks, a sharp crack in the middle of her words.

“No, but I was scared that you would. So better not to know. Better to just –”

“It wasn’t better.”

“No,” Emma admits. “And I’m –”

“Sorry. I know. So am I.” She smiles tiredly. “So where do we go from here?”

“The bath,” Emma says.

“What?”

“It’s cooling, and I really do want you to enjoy it.”

“Oh.” There’s a pause, and then, quietly, “Will you join me?”

And there it is.

“Yes,” Emma answers immediately. “But no.” She tilts her head. “Can I kiss you?”

The request quite clearly takes Regina by surprise, which perhaps – considering what she had just requested of Emma – it shouldn’t, but in a weird way, a kiss almost feels more intimate.

Absurd, of course, because they would have been naked in the bath together.

Still, it’s been so long, and since Emma had arrived back home, she’s been wondering.

Do Emma’s lips taste the same?

Does kissing her feel the same?

Do they still spark the same?

“Yes,” Regina says softly.

Hands cup her face almost immediately, a palm on each cheek, light and unhurried, even if Emma’s bright green eyes have suddenly grown intense. There’s one more pause, one more brief moment where Emma is studying her, looking for any kind of hesitation or signal that she’s changed her mind; and then Emma is leaning in and pressing their lips gently together.

All three questions – taste, feel and spark – are all answered within seconds; the kiss is soft and almost chaste because Emma doesn’t push or rush it. It’s a gentle brushing of lips, initiating and yet fully allowing Regina to dictate the pace and if it should go any deeper than just surface.

Regina considers it, of course; she considers wrapping her arms around Emma, and pulling her back onto the bed they’d once shared as a married couple. But it’s the understanding that they still have so much to deal with which stops her from going any further.

Because, she realizes, she really has missed Emma, and she really does want something more.

More than just a quick roll in the hay.

More than just quick explosive passion.

She wants her wife back.

So, for now, Regina steps back, her fingers on her lips.  “I’m going to take that bath,” she says.

“Would you like me to get lunch started?”

“No,” Regina tells her with a shake of her head. “I want you to sit down and rest; don’t think I don’t notice how you keep wincing.” She steps forward and very lightly places her hand flat against Emma’s chest, assigning no weight to the touch, and yet somehow managing to be felt, anyway. “We have a long day ahead of us; go make a cup of coffee and watch some television.”

“I’m okay.”

“I hope we will be,” Regina counters, and then leans up and kisses Emma on the cheek.

It should feel less than the kiss that they’d just shared, but it doesn’t.

Emma wraps her fingers around the wedding band on the chain around her neck.

And allows herself just the slightest bit of hope that one very day soon, she’ll be able to take the ring off of the necklace, and put it back on her hand where it belongs.

 

* * *

 

Her phone – sitting on the counter in the bathroom – rings just as she’s stepping out of the now cool water. A towel wrapped around her, Regina picks it up, seeing Henry’s name on the screen.

“Hi,” she greets, smiling slightly, fairly sure why her son is calling her the day after his wedding.

“First things first, did Emma tell you to call me?”

“Not yet, but I believe she’s downstairs napping.”

“By herself?”

“I was in the bath.”

“By yourself?”

“Henry.”

“Hey, it’s my job as your son to do whatever needs to be done to ensure your happiness.”

“Okay,” she agrees. “Then, I need you to focus on your new wife, and not mine.”

“Well, considering your wife is my other mother, I figure I have some rights there.”

“Mm. You said first?”

“Yeah, I told Geoff he’s banned from your house until he stops gloating; it’s for the best.”

“I had him and my sister working against me,” Regina reminds him as she drops the towel, and reaches for her bathrobe, sliding it around her. Picking up her brush, she quickly runs it through her somewhat damp hair, not worrying about straightening it so much as getting tangles out.

“I told you introducing the two of them was a bad idea.”

“I fear when Emma becomes part of that group,” Regina sighs.

There’s a pause, and then softly, “So that’s going to happen?”

“I didn’t –” she sighs, and puts the brush did. “I miss her, Henry.”

“I know. She misses you. And you two always were better together.”

“But should we be together? After what happened? Should I – should we forgive her?”

“Follow your heart, Mom.”

“My heart hasn’t always led me in the right direction.”

“With Emma, it has. Your emotions, sometimes…no. But when you let where you want to be – and what you want to be – guide you, I think you’ve ended up happy more often than not.”

“When did you get so wise?” she asks.

“I had two women with good hearts raise me. I had you,” he tells her.

She smiles at that, then says, her voice quiet, but uncertain “Is it strange that a very large part of me just wants to go down there and not care about the last five years? I just want to…”

“Make everything better,” Henry finishes for her. “And no, it’s not strange. But, if I were the one going through this, and it was my marriage, what would you tell me to do, Mom?”

“Be honest, and work through it, both the good and the bad.”

“You’re not angry anymore,” he notes.

“Anger has gotten me nowhere in my life, and one way or another, I want to move forward.”

“Then do that,” Henry urges. “I love you both no matter what choice you make. I love you.”

“My boy,” she says. Then sighs, “Okay, I should go wake her up.”

“How are you so sure she’s napping?”

“I still know my sheriff,” Regina reminds him. “I know my wife.”

“Good,” he answers. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“You’re on your honeymoon,” she counters. “With _your_ wife.”

“Yes, well, Sara wants to know about the two of just as much as I do.”

Regina chuckles. “I love you. Both of you.”

“We love you, too, Mom. Tell Emma the same.”

“Of course.” She hangs up the phone, looks at her reflection in the mirror, and sighs; what she sees is a woman who has been through so very much in her life, and yet still clearly has some hope deep within her, because as she holds up her hand, her ring is still there.

She thinks that means something.

So now, it’s time to get on with letting her heart lead the way.

 

* * *

 

Emma _is_ , of course, sound asleep on the couch. Curled up in an awkward not quite ball thanks to her busted ribs, she has one of Regina’s thin blankets pulled up over her legs. The TV is on, a cartoon playing on the screen. On the table in front of her is a half full glass of ginger ale.

Kneeling down next to Emma, Regina places a hand lightly on her face. “Emma,” she whispers.

“Hey,” Emma says, her eyes slowly blinking. “Did I –”

“Of course, you did,” Regina smiles, her hand sliding into Emma’s. She helps her sit, frowning a bit at the way Emma winces. “We need to get an ice pack on you. And some aspirin into you.”

“I’m –”

“If you say that you’re fine, I’m going to kick you.”

Emma grins. “That doesn’t sound like it would help the whole ‘being in pain’ thing.”

“No, but it would amuse my more childish side,” Regina admits. Then, quietly, “Please?”

“Okay.” Then, “How was the bath?”

“Perfect. You still remember how I like it.”

“Some things you don’t ever forget.”

“I know,” Regina says, and then she’s leaning in and kissing Emma; it’s passionate and fierce, a statement that she feels needs to be made up-front. When she breaks away, leaving Emma a bit breathless and stunned, she explains, “I love you, Emma Swan. With everything in me. You broke my heart five years ago when you gave up on us, but I have a spent long time being unhappy, and I think you have as well. If you’re willing to try, if you’re willing to put in the work – if you’re willing to go slow and rebuild – then I’m willing to give our marriage another chance.”

Emma exhales, her hands reaching up to cup Regina’s face. “Yes,” she says, tears in her eyes.

Their foreheads touch, then, and for a moment, they just stay connected like this.

When Regina finally breaks away, it’s reluctantly, but necessary.

Because she wants to go so much further, push so much further, but it isn’t yet time.

“Aspirin,” she says, moving away from Emma, a hand over her pounding heart.

She feels like a young girl again, and it’s frightening.

Because she’s not a young girl – she’s a woman who has hurt, and been hurt.

She’s a woman who let her anger push away the woman she loves. Just as that woman allowed herself to be pushed away.

They have to deal with those issues – those habits – if they’re going to have a chance.

They’re going to have to actually talk. Be honest.

Starting now.

She returns to the room, hands Emma aspirin and a bottle of water, and then says, “I’d like to call Archie and set up an appointment for us. Preferably as soon as he can get us in. Knowing him, he’ll want to see us both separately and together. Probably together at first, though.”

“Okay,” Emma agrees.

“I know you hate therapy –”

“I’ll do whatever you want.”

“Emma, I need you to do this because you want to, and not just because I do. This has to be the two of us in this together. You have to be angry with me when you are, and I need to know that I can tell you how hurt I am, and you won’t just absorb it like it’s all you deserve from me. I was terrible to you all those years ago, and you had every right to be hurt by me. What you didn’t have the right to do was walk out on us. I need both of us to understand that we screwed up.”

“I’ve spent five years hating myself every day for this,” Emma tells her. “Be patient with me.”

“As long as you’re honest with me. I understand self-loathing, Emma. Better than anyone alive.”

“Archie, then. Yes.” She tilts her head. “What do we do until then?”

“For today,” Regina replies. “I think it might be nice to just…be quiet.” She offers an uncertain smile at this, seeming to think it must sound utterly underwhelming to Emma considering.

But Emma just nods, and says, “I’d like that.” She moves back on the couch, and then lifts the blanket up, her eyes meeting Regina’s with an offer and a challenge. Regina, never one to hide from either, drops down in front of her and spreads out, curling backwards against Emma.

And smiling slightly when she hears Emma exhale, her arms coming around Regina’s front.

 

* * *

 

Having napped through lunch, they're on to dinner, instead. Which is pot roast, and only Regina can manage to make one on the fly; magic has uses, she reminds Emma with something of a half wink. So it’s roast and wine, and Emma’s feeling almost sleepy until the doorbell rings, and she knows that the night is about to get a lot heavier.

She’s right, of course; Archie is standing there with a smile and a notepad.

“Not better time than now,” he says as he steps inside.

“Emma?” Regina asks, looking back at her.

“Let’s do this,” Emma nods.

She hates talking to people, hates talking about her feelings, but she can’t escape the reality that her inability – theirs – to talk to each other had led to the falling apart of their marriage.

So, if talking until she’s blue is what she has to do, well then she’s going to do it.

 

* * *

 

As these things go, it’s not so bad.

Archie asks a lot of open-ended “How do you feel about this?” kinds of question. His tone is gentle and soft, and intentionally non-judgmental. He doesn’t interrupt unless he thinks that either she or Regina are getting off track; usually, he just lets them talk.

And talk.

And talk.

Finally, Regina groans, and says, “Okay, enough. Let’s just get down to what matters here.”

“Which is?” Archie prompts.

“Us making a decision,” Emma answers, eyes on Regina.

“Yes,” Regina agrees.

“You don’t have to make a decision today,” Archie counsels. “You can feel your way –”

“No, we do,” Regina insists. “Not on whether we’re going to get back together, but whether we’re going to try. And that means being honest with each other: do we want to be married?”

“I do,” Emma tells her, not hesitation. And then smiles at the irony of her words.

Thankfully, Regina’s sense of humor remains as off-key as it’s ever been, and she chuckles.

“Regina?” Archie says. “What about you?”

“I do,” Regina agrees. She looks right at Emma. “You hurt me terribly.”

“I know,” Emma acknowledges. She takes a deep breath and repeats, “You hurt me terribly.”

“I know,” Regina concedes. “So where do we go from here?”

“Forward, I think,” Emma says, and then she’s holding out her hand. “Together.”

Regina takes it without delay, “Yes, together, my love.”

 

* * *

 

Emma moves back to Storybrooke the week after Henry’s wedding; she rents a small apartment about half a mile from the house, and goes back to work at the sheriff’s department. For the first month or so, she’s a deputy, but before too long, David is gladly ceding the top spot back over to her, albeit with the assurance that he’ll make sure her load never gets as heavy as it had been years ago; there has to be balance in all parts of her life, her father preaches sagely, his eyes so sincere and hopeful that she has to hug him so that she doesn’t cry.

There’s been far too much crying since she’d returned to Storybrooke.

Oh, most of it is good, for sure, but still, she kind of feels like she’s running dry on the tear tank.

Archie sets up four sessions a week for them – a solo for each of them and then couples therapy at the beginning and end of each week; it’s an adjustment for them to have to be so open about every thought and feeling, and sometimes it gets rough and painful, but Emma goes home every night afterwards thinking that yes, maybe this really will all work out.

Eventually.

Patience has always been hard for her, but she’s finding that she has to have a lot of it; there are days when she wants to just reach over and grab Regina and kiss her until she’s breathless. There are days when she wants to rip her wife’s clothes off and find out if she still makes the same wonderful sounds. But…there are also days when she’s angry and hurt and almost can’t bear to look at Regina, and those are the days that kept her in her own apartment instead of the house.

She figures those are the days that also kept Regina from asking her to move again.

They’re getting less, thankfully, but there’s a session that devolves into shouting over frustrations and tempers. Archie lets them both yell, and then insists that they need to take a time out for a few days to get their thoughts together. He keeps doing that – keeps checking in with them to ensure that they’re still sure they want to try save their marriage.

Each and every time he asks, they both say that they do.

But they take time away from each other; Emma spends a day with Henry and his friends, and Regina spends it with her sister (Zelena is coming around finally, being willing to at least entertain the idea of reconciliation as long as Regina is happy). It’s finding normalcy again.

While understanding that their lives were never meant to be normal.

The first time they get called into action as Savior and Queen is strange for them because they’re out of sync and it takes time to figure out how to just go with the rhythm of things instead of fighting for control. The second time is easier, and by the fifth, it’s a piece of cake for them again.

That seems to be the way of everything.

Even kissing.

There’s a date about three months after Emma moves back to Storybrooke, and it’s quiet and sweet, and then halfway through it, Regina starts laughing and says, “I think I hate this.”

“This?” Emma asks, dread in her gut, her fingers clenching around her wine glass.

“Us pretending like we’re everyone else,” Regina replies. She stands up from the table, signals to the waiter to bring their bill, and then looks at Emma. “I feel in love with you because you could and would bring a chainsaw to a fight, not because we could dress up and drink wine. I would rather talk as we  walk through town than sit here eating sautéed snail.”

“I’d rather get my eyebrow waxed than eat sautéed snail,” Emma murmurs.

“I know,” Regina says with a grin. “But perhaps you’ll settle for the walk?”

The walk is nice and not at all quiet as they move through the town, hand-in-hand, continuing to fill each other in the stories missed from the last few years. None of it matters, and all of it matters, and then they’re standing at the edge of the pond, and Emma says, “Can I kiss you?”

It’s been three months since the last one – time and patience. 

These are the exact same words she’d used then, and she gets the same answer now. “Yes.”

And then Regina is leaning in and kissing her, pulling her so close, eyes closed.

She says, “Tear up the papers.”

“What?” Emma asks, pulling just slightly away, her arms still around Regina.

“The divorce papers. I know they’re still in your bag. Tear them up, Emma.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure that we can make this work,” she says. “I’m sure that we are.”

“Okay,” Emma agrees, and then her hands are cupping Regina’s face and she’s kissing her like the only way she’s going to be able to keep breathing is if her lips are attached to Regina’s.

That almost makes her laugh, and then it does.

“What?” Regina asks.

“Somewhere along the way,” Emma tells her, tracing her fingers over Regina’s lips, enjoying the soft delicate wetness of them. “I became a hopeless romantic. At least my inner voice did.”

“Your parents,” Regina tells him.

“Our son,” Emma counters. “Who texts me almost daily asking for relationship updates.”

“You, too?”

“Yeah,” Emma laughs.

“Well, I suppose we will have quite the update for him tonight.”

“Yeah,” Emma says once more, just before leaning in for yet another kiss.

 

* * *

 

Henry and his wife come over that night, Henry with a box of matches.

“Geoff's in class, but he wanted me to tell you this is from him, too,” he says as he hands them to Regina. She laughs and shakes her head, and then looks over at Emma.

Who is standing over a metal water bucket, the divorce papers tight in her hand.

“Emma?” she asks. “Are you all right?”

“I will be in a minute,” Emma replies, and then she’s dropping the papers into the bucket; Regina nods, and lights one of the matches, dropping in after the documents. They burn easily, disappearing into ashes within minutes, all the terrible words disappearing into nothingness.

Henry lets out a loud whoop, and hugs both of his mothers.

One more roadblock down, the flames climbing out of the bucket as the ashes turn fine.

One more step forward.

 

* * *

 

They finally hit the sheets together two weeks later, and it’s almost a disaster. Not because they’re not as compatible as ever when it comes to sex and making love, but because they’re trying too hard to be compatible and overthinking everything.

Which ends up with Emma on her back on the floor, Regina peering down at her from the bed.

“That didn’t go as planned,” Regina comments wryly, smirking down at Emma.

“No,” Emma agrees. Then grins, “So new plan.” She reaches up and yanks Regina down onto the lush bedroom carpet with her, rolling her over so that’s straddling Regina. “Better plan.”

“Oh, I like this plan,” Regina says, and then she’s pulling Emma down to her. “I like it a lot.”

 

* * *

 

It’s six months after Emma’s return to Storybrooke when she finally moves back into the house.

Back home.

It’s a quiet overcast day, and the return is just as quiet.

A few boxes, some mementos and a car full of clothes to join her old ones.

Their sessions have gone from twice a week to only once a week, but in acknowledgement of the high stress that moving and re-establishing a living situation is likely to put on them, Archie schedules a counseling session before moving day, and then one right after Emma’s in.

“How are you adapting to sharing space again?” Archie queries.

“There are things to get used to once more,” Regina notes.

“She forgot about how I tend to leave my boots everywhere,” Emma grins.

“I did,” Regina allows, smiling a bit. “She forgot what time I vacuum the house.”

“Obscenely early. Use magic,” Emma cracks.

“I’m not getting a hangnail so that you can sleep in later.”

“She acts like she doesn’t just go right back to bed after she’s done vacuuming.”

“You enjoy me back in bed.”

“Oh, I do.”

“That’s…that’s good,” Archie tells them, taking off his glasses and carefully cleaning them.

“It is,” Regina says softly, her eyes never leaving Emma’s.

Emma’s never leaving hers.

 

* * *

 

The ceremony is the to-do of the spring, and there's a spare invitation on the kitchen counter that reads, "The Son of the Brides Invites You to Celebrate with Family and Friends the Renewal of the Wedding Vows of His Mothers, Emma Swan and Regina Mills…"

This time, they get married in the backyard of their home, their dresses simple and elegant, befitting two women who have been through so very much together and apart and then finally together again.

Henry does the honors again, joining his mothers hands.

Then watches as Regina removes the chain from around Emma’s neck, takes the ring off of it, and slides it back onto Emma’s finger, where it belongs.

Oh, they’d discussed getting new wedding rings – a fresh new start, so to speak – but finally decided that wearing the old ones was a sign of how much they had conquered together.

How much they will continue conquering together.

“I now pronounce you…Mom and Mom,” Henry grins. “Or Mrs and Mrs Swan-Mills; your pick.”

“Now kiss!” Geoff yells.

Snow smacks him on the shoulder for that one.

But then they’re kissing and it’s fierce and sweet and passionate and Zelena says with a roll of her eyes, “All right, enough kissing, I want to get on to the celebrating part of this now.”

“Your sister is impatient,” Emma comments against Regina’s lips.

“Runs in the family, I’m afraid,” Regina replies before going in for one more lingering kiss.

One more wonderful beat during this wonderful day.

They turn towards their family, hand-in-hand, and Emma says, “Let’s party.”

 

* * *

 

Miles from home, Emma had been standing in her kitchen starring down at a request for her to come home again. A hundred other ones ignored due to fear and anger at both herself and Regina. Ribs busted and heart broken, she’d made a choice to take a leap of faith and try again.

Divorce papers in her bag, her wedding ring around her neck, she’d made her way back using Henry’s wedding day as an excuse to see if she’d still had a place there; she had and does.

Five years has passed since that day, four since their renewal ceremony, and today they’re in a hospital waiting for Henry to come out of the delivery room with word on their new grandbaby.

Surreal, Emma thinks as she makes her way over to Regina, wrapping her arms around her waist, dropping her chin down onto Regina’s shoulder. Regina’s hand lifts and settles on her cheek for half a moment, her short nails very lightly scratching against the pale skin there.

“You okay?” Emma asks.

“I will be once we meet him.”

“Everything is good,” Emma assures her, because Regina remains as impatient as ever.

Regina is about to respond, but then a door is opening, and Henry is emerging with a bundle in his arms, his smile making his green eyes practically glow with happiness. Regina murmurs, “Yes, it is,” and then the two of them are making their way over to meet their grandson.

“Matthew David Mills,” Henry introduces as he places the baby boy into Regina’s arms, grinning in the same way that Emma is as they watch Regina soften into mush. “Meet your family.”

“We’re kind of crazy,” Emma says as she leans in and scratches the baby’s chin.

“But you’re going to love us,” Regina finishes, looking over at her wife and son.

The rest of their family – Snow and David and Zelena and Geoff – circled tight around them.

Years ago, their journey to each other had started with a baby and then a boy.

There had been death and loss and heartbreak along the way. So many mountains to climb and enemies to conquer, internal and external.

It’s all been worth it, Emma thinks. Every moment of what has been and will be.

She waits until Matthew is settled in Snow’s arms, and then she turns to Regina and hugs her tight to her. And murmurs something that would sound somewhat out of place to anyone else, “I'm here.”

Anyone else, but not Regina.

Because at the end of the day, even when there’s a thousand things between them, when it’s just the two of them together, they always know each other.

So, Regina leans up, presses their foreheads together, and says simply, softly, “My love.”

**-Fin**

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Amore [Fanart]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11936532) by [WillowHermione](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WillowHermione/pseuds/WillowHermione)




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